Louie and the Lovers
Louie and the Lovers were an American rock band from Salinas , California in the early 1970s . The four musicians in the band - school friends Louie Ortega ( guitar , vocals ), Frank Parades (guitar), Steve Vargas ( bass ) and Albert Parra ( drums ) - were of Mexican descent.
In their music influenced by country music , Beatles and Creedence Clearwater Revival , Louie and the Lovers combined current trends in rock music with their Mexican cultural background. The band, whose repertoire consisted of original compositions by Louie Ortega, is considered to be the forerunner of later Chicano rock bands such as Los Lobos .
In 1970, Louie and the Lovers were discovered by Doug Sahm , who brokered them a record deal with Epic Records and produced their only album, Rise . Greil Marcus from Rolling Stone was already enthusiastic about the first single I Know You Know ("the best new single I've heard"). Nevertheless, the record received little attention when it was released and only a few copies were sold. It soon disappeared from the market, but over the years it has become a sought-after collector's item.
In 1972 Louie and the Lovers produced a final single for Epic, Little Georgie Baker . Doug Sahm referred the band to Jerry Wexler and Atlantic Records . Under the production direction of Wexler and Tom Dowd , a second album was recorded at Criteria Studios in Miami, but it was never released. The master tapes were later lost in a fire.
The band soon fell apart, not least because the musicians developed in different directions personally after their school days. Drummer Parra was now married and moved to San Diego . Louie Ortega was the only one who continued to pursue a musical career. In the 1980s and 1990s he reappeared as a guitarist in Doug Sahm's Sir Douglas Quintet and the Texas Tornados . In 1990 the Texas Tornados song Soy de San Luis , which Ortega had translated into English, was awarded the Grammy in the category Best Mexican-American Performance .
Today Louie Ortega is known as a solo artist in the vicinity of his hometown of San Luis Obispo , California. He has released two CDs in self-distribution.
In 2002 Rise appeared on CD for the first time on the English label Acadia / Evangeline.
Discography
Singles:
- I Know You Know / Driver Go Slow (Epic 1970)
- Rise / I Don't Want To Be Seen With You (Epic 1970)
- Little Georgie Baker / Tomorrow Just Might Change (Epic 1972)
Album:
- Rise (Epic 1970; as CD: Acadia / Evangelive 2002)
- The Complete Recordings (2009; Bear Family 2009)